Thriving, striving, or just about surviving?

The RSA set out seven portraits of economic security and modern work in the UK in this report.

As we usher in a new year, our optimism for 2018 is tempered by concern for workers in the UK. Employment may have reached a record high last year, but workers aren't necessarily more secure. If anything, wider economic trends would suggest that workers are worse off as real wages fall and in-work poverty rises. Growth forecasts have been repeatedly revised down, and productivity remains law. Little progress has been made to resolve a lack of social mobility or persistent income inequality. The pay of black and minority (BME) workers and women still lags behind that of their white, male counterparts, and those who are unemployed are routinely denied support as the welfare state increasingly operates on the basis of targeting and conditionality.

Moreover, of the jobs that have been created, many are atypical in nature, meaning that workers have been shifting from full-time, permanent employment to zero-hour or temporary contracts, and are increasingly taking up self-employment or gig work.